305 words

The Miami Herald wants brief stories that linger in the mind. Very brief. As in 305 words or less -- "3-0-5" being at one time the area code for the entire state of Florida. Submissions can be fiction or non-fiction, poetic prose or prosaic poetry -- the creative sky's the limit!

Rules:
-Entries must be 305 words or less.
-Entries can be in English, Spanish, or Creole, or some combination thereof.
-To be considered for the contest, the entry must be received by 6pm, Sunday, November 13, 2011.

More info here.

Beach Day

"Charlie you listen to me, I got food stamps, I'll get you dinner, but you sit yourself down and wait for me."

The woman across from me yelled into her Motorola. She was wearing a dark colored uniform, but I couldn't tell if it was black or navy blue. On her lamp was a bag filled with papers. Her skin was dark and sagged at the corners of her lips. On her feet were black shoes, black faded high socks. Her hair was frizzy from the humid air, although the A/C inside the vehicle pumped cool air onto the back of my neck. I could feel my throat getting sore already. I put my hood up.

"Naw naw, I ain't eat yet, I'll eat witchu." The woman pulled out a tiny bottle of whiskey from her bag, like the tiny bottles you find in hotel room mini-fridges. She chugged the whole thing and hung up the phone. She lifted the bag off her lap to reveal a hardcover book underneath. She placed the bag beside her and began to read from the book aloud. She paused after two or three sentences.

"Oh man," she turned to the woman sitting next to her. "Ma'am did you know this? You know the Warner Brothers Entertainment was founded in 1918?" The other woman shook her head slightly and avoided eye contact. The woman reading took out another bottle of whiskey and chugged that as well. I pulled on a yellow string behind me.

"Honey where you off to?" The drunk woman asked me.

"Work," I answered. The bus screeched to a stop in front of a Pollo Tropical. I got up.

"Mhmm," she mumbled, and kept on reading. I got off the bus and called Mom. Of course, she didn't answer. I walked around the bus stop and headed for the restaurant when I heard mumbling behind me.

Turning around, I saw the drunk woman climb out of the bus and fall into the bus stop bench. I watched her as she pulled out a phone and started yelling again. Clenched in her left hand was the book, and strapped around her shoulder was the open bag full of papers, a pile of four or five sheets littered the floor beneath her. Slowly she laid down across the full length of the bench. More papers fell out and her book crashed onto the cement. She hung up the phone. As I wondered whether she'd be there when I ended my night shift, I turned back around and headed for work.

Security Guard

Andrew Fernandez arose this morning with expectations for a fairly normal Friday on the job. He hadn’t always wanted to be a security guard. He used to dream of becoming an FBI agent but realized that studying to be a cop would be more reasonable. Then the security job opened up at the Falls and work is work right? So he took the job and, for the most part, enjoyed it—except for the Segway.

Andrew could put up with the obnoxious teens and their Miami malls scavenger hunts. He didn’t mind helping kids find their parents when they got lost. But he hated the Segway. There was this one time when someone’s Chihuahua got loose and Andrew had to chase what he thought looked like a hairless rat. It was as if an invisible line connected to dog and the vehicle so that the tiny Chihuahua hauled Andrew and his Segway all over the mall. He tried to look dignified the entire time but came back to trills of laughter exuding from the other guards on duty that day; they would never let him forget it.

Today, Andrew will oversee a second-grade field trip to the theater—the third one this week. He will patrol the grounds all day and wait till about 4 in the afternoon before he moves inward toward the theater to make sure none of the tweens get into fists fights. He will deal with a couple of punks who think it’s funny to sneak into the woman’s bathroom and scare everyone in the stalls. He might recover one stolen item.

As he walks to the Segway to begin the day, he grimaces a little, but he endures it because at least he protects people, at least he matters.

The Individual in Dolphin Mall

The popularity of websites like peopleofwalmart.com and awkward family photos prove that we have become more interested in the candid and incongruous photo. The main function of these pictures—giving us a good laugh and making us feel better about our mundane ordinary lives because at least we don’t feel the need to superimpose an image of our grown selves on our most embarrassing baby picture, or wear fishnet tights and flip-flops to go grocery shopping.

But I’m fascinated by that fact that one good candid photo can also reveal truth without being a form of entertainment. The picture above was taken on the second level of Dolphin Mall overlooking the entrance. The mall is a spectacle in itself; it gets very crowed at night and, after recent renovations, now dons several neon light signs and blasts loud music from its outdoor stage. But the people are most fascinating—both reality and spectacle. Each individual is a building block of Miami: the source of its dualities and the foundation for its diversity.

Take this picture as an example. Upon first glance, it is a conglomeration of color and people and movement, but gaze longer, examine, and it is Miami life on a Saturday night for the local. In other words, there is a truth to this conglomeration, but one must scrutinize to find anything of value.

Look at the man in the second row on the third table from the left. Now scrutinize him, question: What is he wearing? Why is he alone? Does he have a purpose in the scheme of things? He is wearing semi-casual business attire—maybe he came from work. He speaks on his phone but sits alone, perhaps talking to his girlfriend or a client or a couple of good buddies. He becomes absorbed in the conversation and listens intently because the noise from the stage is drowning out the other line. But you know that he has a purpose. He will eat, tip, and leave. He will enjoy the Spectacle for a while, but he will go home. He needs order.

Now turn your attention to the bottom left corner of the photo. A little girl is having the time of her life with a bubble-maker. She does not see the man with the cellphone. She sees no one except her mother and she tries to get mom’s attention away from dad and to the bubbles popping in midair. The girl does not know what order is. She can’t fathom that her parents are having financial difficulties or that her bubbles are getting into other people’s food. She only sees beauty in the floating orbs that reflect the light from the neon signs.

Each person in this photograph has a story. Each story contributes to the duality and the diversity that is Miami. This is the natural candid reality that reveals truth beyond the spectacle.

MetroMiami

“Miami, FL.”

The very name brings to mind images of waterfront glamour, expensive cars, neon buildings, and beautiful bodies on the beach. But what you’d least expect would be a vision of everyday transportation, of the middle to low class. Of working people, of working and living and surviving. What you would probably never think about, or even use, would be the Miami Metrorail.

It represents Miami, the continuous paradox of fanciful excursions and cold, undeniable truth. It is constantly going forward and backward, the way that Miami is continuously trying to further itself in tourism and other spectacles. Miami leaves its resident locals and exiles behind, where they have to deal with their problems by themselves. Their voices scream for us to listen, but our metal cart zooms past into the unreal realm as their voices fade into the distance.

Most evident is that the outside of the Metrorail cars are covered in advertisements for other tourist destinations, such as Casa de Campo, a luxury resort in the Caribbean. The bright blue and white paint mask the cold steel, the rough cables and gears. Images of glitz and glamour return, so that you no longer see a Metrorail. You no longer see a mode of public transportation. You don’t see the masses of working class people that ride this machine every day, struggling to get by. You will never see the reality of Miami.

Los Cubanitos

Growing up, he was often confused.

His mother told him so many stories that they would fill his mind in a steady stream. Images of another time would ring clearer than his own every day activities. Every morning he half-expected to wake up back in his old room, with cold dirt floors and crowing roosters. Why hadn’t the roosters crowed yet, he would wonder. As he waited for breakfast, past meals would replenish his hunger. He would almost smell the rich feasts of Nochebuenas past back in Habana, every dish seemingly etched into his tongue by the pen of his mother’s words. Relatives seemed to live so close to the heart, yet so far away, that he was always torn between these two.

It had seemed that his home address was lying to him. Every letter that arrived came to the mailbox with the words “Miami, Florida USA” as his mother read aloud. But wasn’t he there, in Cuba, with them? So much of his life had been spent in an area where Cuba seemed at once everywhere and far. Every shop and storefront had seemingly been described in tales of old. Maybe this had been the store where mom had met dad, or the restaurant where his mother had first tried flan when she was in grade school. He had tried all these foods before, seen all those signs before. He had lived in a fairytale of life in the past. So until he arrived in elementary school, he had the strongest impression that he had been living in Miami, Cuba.

Original photo: http://merrick.library.miami.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/asm0530&CISOPTR=1271&CISOBOX=1&REC=8

Thoughts on Overtown

I tried a variety of ways to get the photo to appear on the blog. While it seemed to have worked last time I used a Carlebach photo, this time, it did not want to appear on the post. Here is the link before you read the analysis. http://merrick.library.miami.edu/u?/asm0530,1943

An initial examination of “Residences in Overtown Miami” depicts the city’s socioeconomic disparity. One cannot avoid thinking of terms such as “poverty” or “race”. Yes, while these words begin to define this neighborhood’s state, the details suggest more. The rickety windows, makeshift porches, and crumbling paint tell a story of a struggling population. Not only do they deal with “poverty,” or the products of an unplanned city, but a neighborhood trying to maintain itself. I cannot help but stare into the woman’s eyes. Though hard to see, her destitution and hopelessness radiate and provide a hope that the homes lack.

Tucked in a shadow of color and wealth, Overtown acts as the home for most of Miami’s locals. People refer to Overtown as a “problem” with no clear solution. I suppose they forget to look past the living conditions. To use their terminology, the “answer” though lies within reach. The woman’s decision not to sit in the corner expresses this. To gain momentum, a movement has to start from the ground-up and makes its way to a higher power. People in the community must disregard their world and decide to “leave the porch”. This woman stands out as a figure, a greater symbol for an area’s potential future.

Can one person change an established history? The photo’s angle showing similar homes make the woman’s efforts appear futile. Her accomplishments will not change her neighbor’s decisions and actions. Another pair stands on the porch. No one chooses to live in poverty. But choices comprise a level of individuality that contrasts with the generic homes. How many years before Overtown residents realize their position and derive the courage to rise above a city’s “racial” and “economic” boundaries? I have faith that they will.

Myami

I’ve lived in Miami my whole life.Not the Miami in the magazines and TV shows, the one with the expensive boatsand beautiful women in colorful bikinis, the real one. The one where my dad was
shot on his walk home from the bus stop by some gang members. They probably wanted some money for coke, it’s kind of the cool thing for kids my age, but my dad only had ten dollars and sixty-seven cents on him. We don’t carry hundred dollar bills in our pockets like those rich people on the TV shows. In fact, I’ve lived here 18 years and I’ve never seen an a-hundred dollar bill. Maybe that’s why those guys shot him they just wanted to be more like the rich people on TV. For them it probably wasn’t just killing some poor nobody on his way home from his job as a dishwasher at the neighborhood KFC, it was an episode of CSI: Miami. They were the badass criminals who escape the cops and get all the beautiful girls with their diamonds and thousand-dollar bills. I’ve actually never seen the show but all of my friends watch it. It’s the new show that everyone watches because it has drugs, tits, and Cuban criminals getting what they deserve. When we were younger we used to watch Hogan knows best which was great because in between episodes we would always go outside and pretend that we were the famous ones living in the big house on Miami Beach and driving the fancy cars.
My mom used to read to me and my younger sister from this free magazine called “Miami.” Every night before we went to sleep our minds were filled with vivid images of ostentatious penthouses overlooking the bay and stories about normal people living amongst celebrities and artists. Dreams of rolls-royces, lavishly decorated homes on star Island, and ornate restaurants overflowing with people in long dresses and Armani suits filled our heads: no one gets shot just for walking home in this Miami and the biggest worry of locals is which dress to wear to the cocktail party Friday night. For eight hours of the day we were able to be who we wanted to be, what all those people who had never been to Miami thought we were; and
then the next morning we would wake up, play rich people, watch TV shows about people partying and shopping on Miami Beach, and read more of a Miami magazine just in time to escape to our dreams once again.

Footprints

Each footprint only lasts a minimal amount of time for the water washes it away making the area it once inhabited look identical to the sand surrounding it. This is representative of Miami in
the sense that hundreds of unique cultures come and reside in the city but soon lose their distinguishable features and blend in with the westernized culture that engulfs them: Cubans, Mexicans, South Americans, etc. all become Hispanics or Cuban while Africans, Haitians, French, etc. become black or Haitian. As much as each culture tries to keep its footprint intact, the racial tension and myriad segregated peoples of Miami efface the original culture ties and create a watered down, blended version of multiple cultures in one.
So the question becomes: is the footprint still there but we can’ t see it? If we dig
hard enough will we find its original shape and size? Those who are capable of searching hardly care: for them it is simply another day at the beach.

Driving Through 8th Street

Driving through Calle Ocho, I thought I had stumbled upon another Occupy Miami protest. However, this group of veteran Cubans and a few other Latin Americans would never consider occupying Miami. No, they search for answers, a resolution to their motherland’s precarious situations. They wave flags, hoping that one of their turns would somehow affect corrupt governments, miles away across bodies of water as blue and as recognizable as the color of the flags’ stripes.

While the effort generates reactions from onlookers, I cannot help but feel this adds to the problem. Instead of gaining a voice, the protest borders on the level of spectacle. It had to do with the location. Though Calle Ocho is recognized for its diversity, tourists tend to inhabit the area. After having seen this Saturday afternoon display of discord, they would have confirmed the suspicions placed in travel brochures and websites. It does not also help their cause if protestors meet by the “legendary” Versailles Café. Major news stations use it to report on Cuban affairs. Is this what Cubans have left, an icon associated with a French palace ransacked by revolutionaries and now overtaken by tourists?

Besides the theatrical shouts of “Cuba libre,” I found the color white to carry greater weight than the actual event. Protestors use it as a unifying symbol of hope. They show that each country’s problems resonate throughout the rest of Latin America. As the white garments reflect the sun’s heat, protestors gain support from passersby. White invokes peace, compassion, and the desire for a clean slate, a blank canvas. Thus, instead of viewing this as a product of what a city’s impression has done to a culture, it should instead present the steps a people take to preserve and foster their heritage.